I may maintain that the fact that Microsoft has sold 100 million Windows 8 licenses in six months doesn’t mean much. But that doesn’t mean that Windows sales figures aren’t interesting. In fact, Microsoft’s news moved me to rummage around in Google Books, Microsoft’s press site and elsewhere for past sales data for various major editions of Windows dating back to version 1.0, which debuted in November 1985.

Paying too much attention to the exact numbers I quote below would be nuts. Some are from Microsoft; some are from other sources; some refer to all licenses sold while others relate only to boxed software. What’s fascinating is the overall trend and what it says about the number of PC users in the world. Back in 1990 — 15 years into Microsoft’s existence — the fact that Windows 3.0 sold four million copies in its first year made it one of the industry’s biggest smashes until that time. Today, Windows 8 is selling 50 times as fast, and we’re trying to figure out whether that’s an encouraging sign or evidence that it’s a disappointment.

And now the numbers, all of which are for unit sales in copies or licenses:

Windows 1.0 sales from its November 1985 launch to April 1987: 500,000 (Computerworld)

Just be careful. Just like Windows Vista and 7, Windows 8 was force fed into the customers whenever they buy a new PC. They were given any choice.

A key point arises with Windows 8. When there was no competition, the amount of PC sold whether the release was bad (as Windows Vista) or good (as Windows 7) was almost the same.

Today, that we have countless of competitions, selling 100 millions licenses is just a plain lie. You sold about 60 or 70 million PCs, most of those to the enterprise, which rapidly changed the OS to Windows 7 (am writing this article in one of those), the other 30 to 40 million were Windows 8 boxes that were in deep deep discount. I'm sure most of those boxes are lying there unopened, since people bought them "to be prepared" but as the Net Applications numbers show, they haven't been installed.

So the net effect is of course, a decline in the PC market which will make that 100 million mark tough to equal in the coming months.

I always equate Windows 8 with, for example, the movies Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace and Cars 2 (the latter is "sixth biggest Pixar film" according to the wikipedia). Both were box office successes, but the franchises they came from suffered from the low overall quality of the films. Most audience flock to see them, precisely because of their franchises. Even the studios were harmed by their problems and had to make corrections afterwards.

In the end numbers aren't that good, since both in software and in films, some poor performers at the beginning (Windows XP, Blade Runner, Lotus 1-2-3, Apple Macintosh and the Rocky Horror Picture Show) become cult classics. Others, runaway successes (All the Narnias, Windows 98, FarmVille, Word with Friends, 2012, most new James Bond movies) have all been forgotten after just a couple of years.

If you want a usefull barchart, the heights should vary too. 1st line half height 500k, 2nd line twice height 2m 3rd line same height 1m etc or maybe 1/2 of all that. Obviously last few cant be proportional.

I have friends that actually love windows 8. Weird huh? It's the computer press that has this idea that Win8 sucks and that everybody wants the windows vista/7-style startmenu back. There were a lot of upgrades when MS had that deal up to january.

The fact is that Win8 is really not that different from Win7, other than a full screen startmenu with settings, hot corners, and the _ability_ to run RT apps (there's no pressure). There's actually a lot of improvement on the desktop of win8 (wikipedia has the details).

@WallySirFatty Seems like you are paying attention to the press. In my personal and professional circle, about 10-20% of my peers have upgraded, with maybe 5% purchased new devices with Win 8. Out of that, 2 hate it, 5 love it and the rest (25+) are neutral.